Waking up, I find that I am not inside of a hospital, despite my expectations.
Looking around, a few things come to my attention.
1: I have no limbs nor body.
2: I seem to be inside of what I can assume, to be the gunner or commander seat inside of a very, very small tank
3: There is some game looking HUD in my peripheral vision.
Having played many games and read many shitty-but-good novels, I quickly realised I am either having a really really good coma experience, or I am in fact isekai'd.
either case it is much better than having to do my obligations to society.
Looking around the tank a bit, I find a small notebook, as if knowing my intentions, it floated up and opened, revealing its contents.
'Dear Nia, you likely have figured out your situation should you have found this, or it has sensed your disparity and activated itself. Either case, you have died, due to a severe brain haemorrhage. I have chosen you as I wanted someone who shared the same passion of tanks as I do, to show the world the wonders of the mechanized war machines. To put simply, you are now a tank.
This world is one you may find along the lines of, alternate history with fantasy elements. The world itself has progressed to an industrial society by combining the people's intelligence and magic.
I only recently got permission to let them progress this far and I have been anticipating how tanks and magic would work together, or how they would clash, so I eagerly await your ascension.
P.s. if you ever get stuck, please focus on the missions log at the top right your your peripheral
P.s.s. you may also leave a question here in the book, I will attempt to answer it when I get the chance, being a demigod is busy work you know'
That was....something, but insightful Had I not read it I may have just assumed it was typical medieval fantasy, so suddenly having arty rain shells on my ass would have most certainly catch me off guard.
ok so mc isekai starting checklist.
Be reborn after dieing, check
Figure out what your cheat or specialty is, check
Wake up in the middle of a forest or field, check.
ok what's next?... either some random creature for me to flaunt my power or walk for like 5 minutes and find a convenient road or village.
I look around and do not find either of those 2 and sigh a metaphorical sigh.
well I should at least figure out how to actually do tank things.
I look to the mission and the mission box extends
'Basic tank controls: user may find there are numerous ways to control the tank. For example, the user may try to physically move, think about moving and aiming, or control the vehicle as if they were in a game'
As if it were a game? You cant be- ok so imagining the W A S D does fucking work... at least muscle memory will serve me a shit ton here. I would assume same goes for mouse aiming.
And sure enough my turret starts moving, Conveniently as I try to focus on something within a frontal cone of the turret, it aims towards it.
So I figured out driving and aiming, so that just leaves shooting. Looking to the top left Hud menu I am armed with a 25mm cannon and a coaxial 8mm.
Imagining certain buttons being pressed I was able to fire both of the guns.
Ok so base controls completed, now what should I do?
I look up to the mission only to find 'Await further missions: In the meantime you may kill or do tank related things to gain rewards'
*sigh*
He mentioned I can ask questions so perhaps that can get some of my biggest questions out of the way.
Opening the book up and turning a page I see a box for putting questions in, there were no specific limitations so I went in order of most important to least important.
"Since you have allowed me to ask some questions, albeit you forgot to indicate any sort of limit, so please answer these in order if there is a limit;
1: If I take damage, to what extent can I repair/what can kill me? you probably know that tanks are technically only alive if there is crew, as we both know, technically only I am the crew yet also the tank. I am assuming I can repair as a sort of healing should I take damage so what is my limit there?
2: Am I the only 'other-worlder' or whatever you may call it here? are there others who originated from other worlds? are they non-human like myself?
3: What would be the natives perception of me? will they think I am just a vehicle and ignore my presence? will they think I am an invader or monster?
4: How would I get stronger if there is any method, usually in this sort of scenario the main character gets stronger as they kill, is this what the mission means by 'rewards'?
lastly 5: Is there a limit to my fuel and ammo? would I need people to refuel me or whatnot?
I hope you can answer them all, otherwise please answer them in order and I await your reply."
I had only closed the book for a few seconds before it started glowing, curious, I opened it to find an immediate answer.
"1: for your first few days, you can recover from complete destruction, however eventually your tank will have a core, this core has some shielding so it can withstand a small bit of damage, however should it get destroyed you will no longer be able to repair and will die after a few days unless you can buy a new core. see answer 4 for that.
2: Short answer yes, long answer, no, there have been some times within the world's history where they summoned heroes to deal with huge disasters. Most of them have lost this art but a few still retain the ability, within a few months there will be a new disaster to befall the world which they will summon heroes once again.
3: This would depend on the individual, most common folk who understand the concept of a car or motorized vehicle will assume you are one, but people who are higher ranked military officers and such will treat you with extreme suspicion and may actually assume you to be a genuine threat, as of now there are no tanks so they wont exactly know what you are, but when tanks become official they will likely assume you to be one. As for assuming you to be a monster, it would either be those deathly terrified of you, or those who do not know what a vehicle is.
4: You get research, progression and merits when you do stuff, Research will unlock newer and better parts for you. Progression unlocks entire new Eras of technology, for now you are stuck with WW1 level of technology, you can progress into Interwar, early WW2, Mid, late, post war, cold war, and all the way up every few decades up to well beyond your previous world's technology. I don't think you can, but if you somehow speedran to modern era, let alone space era tanks, before these folks figured out how to make a tank, I would genuinely try and get you a spot as a demigod when you eventually pass. as for the Merits, they let you actually buy the parts, consumables and replacement cores.
5: Yes, they will eventually run out and you will need to refill it using mana, as for how you are creating materials out of nothing its because they are temporary material, when you summon a shell its bound to your soul, like magically summoned swords, but when you fire the shell, it has a limited lifespan before it dissipates, meaning they will never find the bullets you fire as they only exist for about a minute or two. The mana in question can regenerate over time though do expect a lot of downtime with very fuel hungry vehicles early on as you would need to level up your mana like this world's natives do, but given you don't exactly need stats like STR or CON you could just max everything into your INT. hehe wizard tank, bet that will scare the purists. on a side note, if you spot individuals with very high CON, go straight for the head, they will regenerate if you don't outright kill them on the first shot, but you can drain their hp dry by raw damage output.
as for your question limitations, before you get your core you are free to ask lots, but once you get it you are limited to like, 1 question per week. wouldn't really be fun if I kept back-seating you.
ciao for now
P.S, kill stuff and drive over and through stuff to get rewards"
Well thankfully he answered all of them, and some more on-top, and of course there's a fucking level system.
turning a page on the book I see a bunch of different menus and information.
Research: 10
Merits: 13
Progression: 0
Then stuff like inventory, after opening inventory I see a few things relating to my tank:
25mm AP: 47
25mm APHE: 60
8mm: 876
Fuel 246/250L
Spare track links: 20
Misc repair parts: 60
Well...guess with all that out the way, time to grind back to top tier tanks...though this time I absolutely must have a good K/D... given that its not a virtual tank that will be dying this time...